Remembering Gattona

 

Gattona has chosen me back in August, 2018, when she was pregnant. I had seen her for months coming to get the food I always left (and still leave) for stray cats in my garden. She was not keen for cuddles, but one day she entered the house like it was her own, and never went away.

She relaxed in the kitchen, or on the sofa-bed upstairs, while her belly grew and grew.

One day, while I was about to close the sofa-bed after a visit, she arrived meaowing because she knew she was about to deliver. I quickly prepared a box with some old clothes, but as soon as I put the box for her to go in, she chose the sofa-bed... and started her labour!

She delivered only one son, Rua, and I've written about them here. As soon as I could, I neutered her, so that she could enjoy staying at home. According to the vet she could have been no more than two years old at that time.

When Rua was old enough, she stopped being a mother and became a grumpy lady cat. She had the nasty habit of marking her territory (like male cats usually do), and that territory not only being the garden and the outside of my house, but also the inside, particularly the kitchen. She barely tollerated the presence of her son Rua, as for other cats...? No way!

 But she was also very affectionate, and when she wanted to be cuddled, she had the deepest and longer purr of them all! She slept on my bed, on my mother's bed, on her preferred chair, on her pillow. And she had several preferred spots in the garden where to lay down and sunbathe.

She have had some healthy problems here and there, and last november I had to let the vet surgically remove a couple of benign cyst. Last July she suffered a sudden anemia, and the vet said that there was nothing to do if it was due to the poison used to eliminate rats, if on the contrary it was some case of an autoimmune disease then she could get better.

With the treatment she got better, but it was not enough anyway - a sudden relapse happened few days ago. I was going to put her to sleep, but when I came home from work on September 14th, she glanced at me and searched for my hands... and died. She was (probably) nine years old, a pretty good age for a stray!

My home will never be the same. I had so many cats in my life that I lost count, but she was the one who chose me to be her human. And I will never thank her enough for that. 

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